Psychosocial mechanisms for the transmission of somatic symptoms from parents to children

Table 3 Psychological traits in children and their mothers

Psychological trait	Case families			Control families			Combined samples
	Mother	Child	rho	Mother	Child	rho	All mothers	All children	rho
	mean ± SE	mean ± SE		mean ± SE	mean ± SE		mean ± SE	mean ± SE
Global psychological distress	2.81 ± 0.10a	55.16 ± 0.62a	0.414b	1.22 ± 0.07	48.46 ± 0.53	0.376b	1.99 ± 0.07	51.65 ± 0.42	0.484b
Anxiety	0.66 ± 0.04a	4.64 ± 0.25a	0.314b	0.30 ± 0.02	2.65 ± 0.17	0.354b	0.46 ± 0.02	3.60 ± 0.15	0.393b
Depression	1.01 ± 0.04a	2.20 ± 0.15a	0.282b	0.48 ± 0.03	1.29 ± 0.09	0.301b	0.77 ± 0.03	1.72 ± 0.09	0.345b
Somatization	1.15 ± 0.04a	3.24 ± 0.16a	0.366b	0.45 ± 0.02	1.73 ± 0.10	0.157b	0.78 ± 0.03	2.43 ± 0.10	0.374b

^aP < 0.001 case vs control;

^bP < 0.001 mother vs child.